


Before Our Lives Divide Forever

by tsukara



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, POV Third Person Omniscient, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukara/pseuds/tsukara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your futures are supposed to divide, and your destinies seem to be converging, 'later' will always catch up, sooner or later. Sometimes for the better of those who pause, for a moment or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Our Lives Divide Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wordgawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordgawk/gifts).



"Hm?" Mitsuru looked up at his voice, blinking a little in mild surprise.

Akihiko shifted, tugging absent-mindedly at a glove as he turned his gaze from the nearly empty hallway to her. "I asked if you were alright." He repeated.

The hall echoed back the vast emptiness, or mostly emptiness, at this hour, of the auditorium through the doors behind them. Very soon, that hall would fill up, with the students, their classmates--Akihiko himself even (boxing team captains were rarely invited to give speeches at end of year ceremonies, after all), and Mitsuru would be up there, in front of them all.

_For the last time_, his mind put in traitorously. They'd all be leaving, after this. He had a university to attend, and Mitsuru had a company to run, and a fiancé to marry. They'd worked so hard to get to this point, Mitsuru most of all.

She gave him a small, vague smile in the hard fluorescent lights. "Just trying to remember everything for my speech," she told him.

They both knew Mitsuru wasn't the type to need notecards, or prompts. He smiled back at her. "You'll do fine, you always do."

But her smile stayed half-lit, and he could tell she wasn't thinking only about the speech. He knew how to read her these days, knew when she was worrying at some problem, like tugging a loose thread to try and see what it unraveled. "You won't forget anything," he told her.

Her voice was almost too low to hear, half to herself, and he had to lean in to catch it. "Other than what I have already."

"Sorry?"

She shook her head, shaking off whatever strange feeling he'd seen pass over her face. "We've been in school a long time. We're bound to forget some things," she directed that same half-smile to him again, covering up that strange, nagging thought.

Akihiko echoed the gesture. "You? Never."

They stood in silence for a moment, as the noise slowed increased in the air around them, as the auditorium slowly began to fill up with the early ones, and Mitsuru realized just how close he had shifted to hear her softest statement.

The blush crept over her cheeks, despite her best mental exercises to quash it, but she did not move away. "Akihiko," she began, not knowing herself where she was going with this. "Do you, ah..." So many things she seemed to remember, even within the last year. So many things she knew she had forgotten and couldn't conjure up anymore.

"Mm?"

Mitsuru looked away, her long bangs covering her face. A shield, as unconscious a gesture as it was, to hide her eyes from him, even as the sun decided to round the corner of the building, throwing the corridor into syrupy, thin spring light that promised warmth soon. "Do you think we'll be alright?" She asked, throwing the question out there, like a lifeline to the sinking notion that something in her head was not quite all right.

Akihiko stared at her curiously, wondering what had brought that on, though a small part of him was distracted by the way her hair caught the light and turned it the color of precious rubies. "Of course we will. Long as we keep fighting," he threw out there, his own mantra.

Lifting her head again, she caught his gaze for a long moment while the tide of noise ever-increasing washed over them from outside. "Right," she murmured, almost a whisper, in an effort to not break the moment, not just yet.

He was leaning in, half-unconsciously, and she was looking up at him, and she realized that, for the first time in a long time (no, no, something in the back of her mind said, not that long) she didn't know what to anticipate.

Impressions, little bits, the way he looked at her, the brush of the cloth of his gloves on her cheek, the sunlight gilding his silver hair--and then the tide washed over them as the auditorium door was pushed open.

The spell was broken, all those little pieces flying away like the cherry blossom petals that chased each other outside the window. Akihiko practically leapt back, as if struck, adjusting a glove self-consciously, a defense mechanism, and Mitsuru leaned back into the wall, crossing her arms, hiding her glare from the gaggle of freshman girls who were, even now, being told that that wasn't where the teacher they were looking for would be, not at this hour.

Akihiko cleared his throat, searching the ground with his eyes. "I should go sit," he said absently. "I'll... talk to you later."

Impulsively, Mitsuru wondered if they would be able to do more than talk, before she firmly quashed such silly notions. No time to think of such silly things, she had a speech to give, a town to leave, a company to rebuild, a promise to keep, so she had better get started.

So she lent no more thought to things like thinking about what Akihiko would do if she removed his gloves herself, or where that last item on her to do list had come from, and focused on giving a good, solid, inspiring speech. Everything else could wait until later.

Even though later turned out to be a while coming.

After memory, when all the group pulled loose that same, strange thread of mystery.

After hope, and a promise kept, despite odds or trials.

And after bittersweet sorrow, one of necessity and a victory assured. After a hard understanding, of a kind, came to them, slowly, a harder task than remembering.

Later waited for several days, until that strange, repeated one, locked in the dorm.

He'd knocked. Mitsuru thought, for a moment, that it had to be someone else. After all, why would Akihiko knock on the door to his own dorm? But it was him, calling through the door, and it wasn't their dorm anymore, anyway, she reminded herself. "Hey," she greeted him, tired after her shift watching the strange intruder, putting components on to Aigis. Even sleeping a few hours hadn't helped, not that it was much use, when you couldn't tell what day it was anymore.

Akihiko noticed. "Are you okay? What's up, your message wasn't very--" he stopped at the slight shake of her head.

"Come inside," she pulled the door wider, and he slipped inside, brushing past her. A memory of the last time she had seen him, before their lives had gone hurtling on down their separate paths, rose unbidden as he brushed past her. "We've got trouble."

He slid his hands halfway into his pockets, turning as she closed the door behind her. "So you said." To the unpracticed eye, it was almost a casual stance, but it radiated tension and concern to her.

Mitsuru leaned back against the door, her own worries tightening her stomach like a knot. "We had an unexpected visitor, last night."

"Oh?"

"From the basement."

Akihiko's frown deepened slightly. "The dorm doesn't have a--" He stopped as she nodded over his shoulder, turning to survey the new, odd hole in the lobby floor. He stared at it for a few long seconds before turning back to her. "I stand corrected," he muttered. "So this visitor?"

"Tried to 'eliminate' us," she said shortly, waiting for his reaction. "A robot, seems to be the same model as Aigis. We've got her in the lounge now, and we still haven't been able to wake Aigis up. The other one's awake though. Trying to give us orders about Aigis."

"Orders?"

Mitsuru shrugged, unsure about the exact nature of those orders. "Improvements, supposedly. But we aren't getting much else out of her. I was... hoping you'd have some ideas. "Or at least that he'd be able to punch something and it would help. That had been a viable strategy, in the past, after all.

Akihiko stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on. "I think you'd better show me this... visitor."

*

Later was after the monsters, and after the past, as it usually is.

"I don't know about you," Mitsuru told the rest of them as they trudged back up to the lounge, worn out from battles aplenty. "But I could use a little rest, even if it is only a few hours of sleep."

There was a general murmur of agreement, punctuated by Junpei's "Yeah, I'm totally beat," and Koromaru's bark of agreement.

"Some of the rooms should still have things, and of the beds will all be there," Mitsuru pointed out, heading for the stairs. "A few hours should be enough."

With that, they all went to their tasks, some in their old rooms, others staying in the lounge with the mechanical sisters too.

*

But 'after' wouldn't wait forever.

"Mitsuru?" Akihiko called through the door.

Mitsuru let her fingers fall from the ribbon at her throat. Her planned few hours sleep could wait a few minutes more, she reasoned. "Come in."

He did so, pushing the door shut behind him after only a moment hesitation.

"I'm sorry I got you stuck here," she started off before he could. She felt guilty--she had called him, and almost immediately after he'd shown up, the dorm had locked down, thanks to the Abyss. "If it wasn't for me calling you, you wouldn't have been dragged into this whole mess," she explained, off of his frown.

Akihiko shook his head, folding his arms and leaning back against her door frame.

The. The doorframe. She really had to stop thinking of this as her room still. That part of her life was over now. Or, at least, it was supposed to be. "It's not your fault," one of those parts of her old life told her. "I think I would've ended up here just in time, even if you hadn't called me."

Mitsuru tilted her fringe out of her eyes. "What, destiny?"

He shrugged. "Something. Pulling us all back here like this when we're supposed to be moving on with our lives."

"Right." Mitsuru closed down a little, something of the shell that she carried with her in the world outside returning to her now. "We were all planning on being very different places than back there again. Who we used to be."

There was a kind of sadness she had, in all that steel, he realized. It wasn't just her father's death, either, he thought. Fighting made her so much stronger, and she'd let facing her future turn it into strength--and hardness. A sort of bravery, if you didn't think about it too much, he supposed.

He didn't like it. He had seen that sort of bravery, the hardness in himself, and it wasn't until he'd admitted he was fighting for something that it became worth something. "Mitsuru," he spoke, and wondered how to begin. Who was he to decide he didn't like her future? He wasn't a part of it now. Akihiko sighed. "Never mind."

"Anyway," Mitsuru went on as if he hadn't spoken. "We'll get out of here, and get back to those futures." Her smile was bright, and almost empty.

"Maybe," he muttered darkly, shoving away from the door.

Mitsuru's smile faded as she tried to figure out just which of many pessimisms he was going for with that one. Even he was having a little trouble figuring out what he'd meant by that. "Never mind. It is a little like old times again though, isn't it?"

She nodded, looking away, looking almost nostalgic. Already. Nostalgic for fighting and Shadows and mysteries, and he found he could not disagree with that.

Damn those futures of theirs, waiting to swallow them back up. Here, in this desert of myriad pasts, it hunted them like a Shadow they could never beat, only outrun for so long. Well he'd fought one of those before, and he was starting to hatch the sudden, insane plan of, just maybe, fighting this one for a little while longer.

The mad idea made his eyes go narrow as he worked it out, and Mitsuru noticed. "Akihiko?"

"Suppose..." He started, then shook his head, working out another way to begin it.

"Just for a little while," he began again, hardly believing what he was saying, but going on since it felt right. "Let's not think about the future--those futures." Those futures that didn't include their friends here, that didn't include each other, or good sushi, or threats of 'execution', or… Futures that didn't include each other.

He was so close to her, she realized, in this small room. And yet she didn't move away, couldn't, as if drawn to him by some strange gravity. "But..." the protest died on her lips as he stepped closer, close enough to feel his heat on her skin, but not touching.

Ahihiko silenced her with a look. "Just for a little bit, let's just be. Just us."

She meant to disagree, she really had. There were so many objections that could be made, such as the fact that there was, in fact, a future to think of, if they got out. But his proposal... to be, just for a while, as herself, without having to fight, or search, or fix the thousands of lies and problems her father had left behind for her as a legacy. He wouldn't have to fight either, to constantly challenge, to struggle with that secret fear that he was not, and would never be good enough. That would all be left to another, later time. For now...

To just be.

And then she was falling into him, or him to her, it didn't matter, in the end, as they kissed, his hands finally, finally touching her. She curled her fingers in the collar of his sweater, trying to pull him even closer, though it felt impossible to be so close already, as she stumbled back against the wall.

He slid a hand from her shoulder to her cheek, and she broke off the kiss to lean into his touch of skin on skin.

Make that the touch of cloth against skin. "Your gloves are still on," she informed him breathlessly, and he pulled away from where he had been kissing along her jaw line to look at the hand still on her shoulder in bewilderment. They were like a second skin to him, she wasn't surprised he hadn't noticed.

Not wanting to untangle himself entirely from her just yet, he pulled that hand away, bringing his fingers to his mouth, biting the end of the glove, and pulling it off expertly. Mitsuru watched, and the blush spread across her cheeks grew as he held her gaze, steadily. It was a simple, practiced thing, something he must have done a hundred times before but...

She broke his gaze to watch the glove fly in a lazy arc toward the bare bedside table, where he had aimed it, bringing her eyes back to watch him repeat the same ritual again. Her breath hitched as the fabric pulled away from bare skin, his fight-worn hands warm against her cheek, catching a little on the fabric of her ribbon as he tugged at that next.

It was an unusual experience, his skin on hers, and she reveled in it, giving up subterfuge in her appreciation. Just for a little, she told herself again, like a mantra. He was deft, with his fingers, and soon the tie hung loose around her neck, and he started slowly on the buttons of her shirt.

But she was not content to be simply over-whelmed by him, taking back her own initiative, working at the buttons on his sweater vest, tugging at his own skinny tie. Meanwhile he kept tugging, revealing more glimpses of skin, cream beneath the crisp white of her shirt. Underneath was her bra, pretty light amber, with just enough lace to catch his attention.

Truthfully what really caught his attention, of course, was what that garment contained, but the clasp slowed even his fingers down--though not for very long. Mitsuru bit her lip to stifle her gasp as it fell free, pushing him back a little. Not off, she didn't want him to stop, just slow down enough to listen to her. "I would think... isn't the bed traditional," she made a valiant effort to marshal her scattered thoughts. "Might be easier." Not like she had any idea, beyond a mostly literary and theoretical knowledge of how all of this was supposed to work.

They'd work it out, she knew, as he nodded wordlessly, breathlessly at her. "Right," he managed to get out, recovering a little bit. "Right," he repeated a little more firmly, aiming for the bed, pulling her along with him. When he nearly tripped over the boots she had taken off earlier, she took over, sitting down first and pulling him back to her.

Akihiko slid down next to her, his hands fitting to the curves of her body as he kissed her again. Her own hands wandered, sliding down his chest, taking in the hard lines of him, hesitating when she reached the line of his trousers. It was her who pulled away this time, shaking back her hair to look at him. "A-Akihiko, are you sure--?" She began, thinking to insert some politeness into this whole strange—and frankly quite wonderful—series of events.

Akihiko, though, wasn't having any of that. "Of course," he jumped in before she had even finished. I mean," he backed up, "only if you want to, that is, and, uh."

That was more than good enough for her though, and she leaned into him to kiss him with renewed vigor. Mitsuru went for the fly of his trousers with much more confidence than she'd had before, even as his fingers, inspired, fumbled with her skirt, getting it undone just before she slid long, warm fingers over the bulge in his pants and he gasped a little, settling his forehead in the crook of her neck. "Wow," he breathed out, as she experimented with more light touches, even as she tugged his trousers down and her skirt fell open on the bed.

Her panties, comfortable lace, contrasted beautifully with her pale skin and dark stockings, he decided as he drank her in with his eyes, working up the courage to touch her again. Mitsuru had no such reservations about her own body, leaving off of his clothes for a moment to guide one of his hands to the curve of her hip. He took his cue from that, trailing fingers down to curl up into the juncture between her thighs, feeling her wetness even through her panties.

Rubbing in slow, small circles brought a moan from her as she shifted her hips against his fingers.

Akihiko, wanting to see if he could get more such responses out of her, climbed on to the bed himself, abandoning the pants she'd undone, carefully pulling off his briefs, which seemed far too small now. She pulled him over her, and then down to kiss her again, by the collar of the shirt he still wore. Settling in between her slightly parted legs, he leaned back in order to draw her panties down her long, slender legs.

Mitsuru watched him, hair in her eyes, and her lips swollen and pink from kissing. Her regard emboldened him, and so he experimented, kissing the inside of her knee as he rolled down one stocking, trailing fingers up the inside of her thigh as he removed the other. Then exploring, kissing, licking, tasting Mitsuru. He tested out that tight nest of curls he'd uncovered, his fingers sliding into her wetness. "Ahh, Akihiko," she murmured his name, one hand curling over his strong shoulder, the other lost in the already-tangled blanket.

She let him have a few more moments of his slow exploration of her responses, arching up when he found her clit, mostly by accident. Startled, but pleased, he repeated the small motion, and again. Mitsuru, struggling to hold on to some awareness of herself, and their place, found she couldn't tamp down all of her pleasured responses. "Akihiko, I- I want..."

Akihiko stopped, looked up at her, his own breathing labored under his shirt. For a moment, she caught his gaze, wondering how to put this, before the simplicity of it hit her. "I want you."

Her pronouncement broke him out of his haze, and he nodded. And then moved away from her, groping for his abandoned pants on the floor. Confused, she watched him, and then understood as he unearthed a small foil packet from his slim wallet, and returned to his place between her legs again. "Good thinking," she complimented, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

With steady fingers, the one part she hadn't been able to fluster and overcome, and likely never would, he ripped open the wrapper. He could have sworn he'd seen this done before, should know it went. Mitsuru leaned up, helping him along with it as best she could. "Like a glove," she smiled up at him as they succeeded.

And then his lips were against hers, and the weight of him lay heavy against her thigh. Mitsuru rocked her hips up, and in the same moment he slid into her, the sudden admittance bringing pleasure hard on its heels, any pain washed away in pleasure very shortly.

She moved first, a signal he had been waiting for, perhaps, as he pulled out, just a bit, experimenting. Experimenting shouldn't feel this good, but it did, even as they were mismatched, and fumbling towards something more.

Eventually they came to some mutual rhythm, rocking into each other just right. Just a moment of that strange, ancient alchemy was all it took, and Mitsuru came first, in slow, inexorable waves, the sensation washing over her, taking away all thought. Even as her movements slowed, and she gasped out in pleasure, Akihiko's own movements grew erratic and tight, moving towards his own end. But despite the difference, there was enough momentum that all of it felt perfect, and he followed soon after, muffling his own cry against her shoulder.

It was like winning and falling, all at once, the thought hit him as he opened his eyes to look at the girl--at the woman who'd found him, so many times. And never found him wanting.

He held himself above her, on firm, unyielding arms. _Like a fortress_, she thought to herself. A stronghold where all she had to be was herself--not perfect, not full of secrets and lies and fighting-- just herself. Safe.

It was a moment she wanted to hold on to.

And it was only a moment, as he rolled down beside her on the narrow bed, his back to the rest of the room. They lay there in silence for a moment before Mitsuru pushed herself up slowly, grabbing the standard-issue blanket she'd meant to leave her from the foot of the bed and pulling it up over them as she lay back, curling up into him.

"We should go back down," he murmured, his lips against her hair.

Mitsuru shifted comfortably in his arms. "Sleep, first. What we came here for."

His agreement was wordless, as he shifted against her and quickly fell down into sleep. She followed more slowly, her mind drifting with thoughts, mostly idle, some not, even fewer about the future. Except for one, as she curled up under the blanket, just a little more. That fiancé thing might not work out--and then she knew nothing more but dreamless sleep, until the alarm on her phone awoke her.

*

No one questioned them, or even glanced their way, when they came back down, Akihiko first, Mitsuru moments later, meeting Yukari on the stairs. And then it was back down into the Abyss. Akihiko went fist-first, punching out every challenge he could find, like always. Behind him, Mitsuru focused on slashing through to the light, finding justice through this, just a little.

Neither gave much thought to the events that had transpired upstairs, not during the battles.

After all, there was always later.


End file.
